In this case study we discuss how Alice and Bob would address database selection and configuration for their respective private and public clouds.

Alice's organization has high availability concerns, so she has elected to use MySQL for the database. She further places the database on the Management network and uses SSL with mutual authentication among the services to ensure secure access. Given there will be no external access of the database, she uses certificates signed with the organization's self-signed root certificate on the database and its access endpoints. Alice creates separate user accounts for each database user, and configures the database to use both passwords and X.509 certificates for authentication. She elects not to use the nova-conductor sub-service due to the desire for fine-grained access control policies and audit support.

Bob is concerned about strong separation of his tenants' data, so he has elected to use the Postgres database , known for its stronger security features.  The database resides on the Management network and uses SSL with mutual authentication with the services. Since the database is on the Management network, the database uses certificates signed with the company's self-signed root certificate. Bob creates separate user accounts for each database user, and configures the database to use both passwords and X.509 certificates for authentication. He elects not to use the nova-conductor sub-service due to a desire for fine-grained access control.